Japanese troops can’t help falling in love with Maj. Manuel Sam Wong. The Yama Sakura 59 war game was now or never for strategic intelligence officer, whose Elvis impersonation is a special brand of cultural exchange, reports 5th Mobile Public Affairs Detachment. Wong, with I Corps at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Wash., became the devil in disguise, trading his ACUs for a sequined white jumpsuit and his oak leaf for a sideburn wig. “Elvis is known throughout the world,” said Spc. Gerard White, also with I Corps, who met Wong in Iraq in 2009. “So, if you have an American soldier…

Pfc. David “Smiley” Lawrence, the soldier accused of murdering a shackled Taliban commander, nodded off several times during a hearing that will determine if the Army puts him on trial. His attorney says the 20-year-old Fort Carson, Colo., GI is strung out on drugs to battle schizophrenia and isn’t mentally fit to stand trial. Lawrence’s platoon sergeant testified Lawrence announced he would, “do something in the next 20 minutes that you are too pussy to do.” “He said, ‘I killed him,'” Staff Sgt. Dominic Buscemi, testified. “I said, ‘Killed who?’ and he said, ‘The guy in the cell.'” [via The…

The father of a 101st CAB staff sergeant found with a gunshot wound to the head is filled with questions about his son’s death, but Army CID released few details and about the case and declined to provide a time frame for more answers. David Senft, 27, was found dead in a vehicle on Kandahar Airfield on Nov. 15 in a “non-combat incident.” The father is baffled why his son would commit suicide; he had been treated after previous suicide attempts, but he was just married, was recently promoted and loved his five-year-old son. Senft, a crew member of Lt.…

An Iraq vet who shot a noisy fellow moviegoer in Philadelphia during “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” on Christmas 2008 pleaded guilty yesterday to aggravated assault and possessing an instrument of crime. James Cialella, 31, a former sergeant, tried to break up a fight in the theater when he was attacked. Cialella, who had a North Carolina gun permit, fired in self defense, his attorney said. [via Philadelphia Inquirer] The Army is investigating officers who oversaw the group of Joint Base Lewis-McChord soldiers that allegedly murdered civilians and committed other crimes during their recent deployment to southern Afghanistan. The…

Several soldiers from the 4/23 Battalion, who confessed to using steroids, estimated that more than half the unit of some 700 soldiers had sampled steroids, according to investigative documents obtained by The Seattle Times under the federal Freedom of Information Act. One soldier had a scheme for continuing steroid use in Afghanistan through the receipt of mail-order packages that would disguise the drugs in lotion packets. [via Seattle Times] Soldiers accused of breaking into a Colorado medical marijuana dispensary and then accidentally locking themselves inside told police they planned to destroy the marijuana — not smoke or sell it. [via…

Keeping it real went wrong for a Fort Carson, Colo., civilian resident now charged with shooting workers at a Burger King on post and a Cricket in town during two robberies. Joshua Bodean Smith, 20, reportedly told the clerk at the Cricket, “I ain’t playin’,” before shooting him in the shoulder and emptying the cash register. He faces federal charges and up to 30 years in jail. The Army was holding Smith’s girlfriend, identified as Pfc. Bianca M. Soto, who federal authorities say acted as Smith’s getaway driver. [via Colorado Springs Gazette] A Colorado jury convicted former soldier Marcus Hightower,…

A 41-year-old soldier from Fort Riley, Kan., faces charges in Connecticut that he sexually assaulted the 13-year-old daughter of a friend. He had arranged to meet the girl on Facebook, picked her up at her father’s house and took her to a motel. The girl’s mother found a message from her daughter worrying she was pregnant, and a reply from the soldier, worrying he’d go to jail. [via Metro Source News/KSAL-Radio] An Alabama jury watched a videotaped confession of a homeless, Iraq vet with mental health issues who kidnapped, robbed and murdered an 18-year-old Auburn University freshman. In his chilling…

A self-described jihadist who killed a soldier outside a Little Rock recruiting station speaks. He had a history of addiction and violence before he turned to radical Islam. He said he was arrested in Yemen, and came to the attention of the FBI and CIA, which he said, “dropped the ball with me,” even after he returned to the U.S. to plot terrorist acts. The Memphis Commercial Appeal describes his “one-man jihad” and how he slipped through the cracks. [via Commercial Appeal] A federal jury in Washington Monday convicted a former Air Force senior airman in the fatal beating of…